


Magic Ink

by Daniele



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fairies, Fantasy, Gen, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 21:17:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5180045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daniele/pseuds/Daniele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All he wanted was to continue doing his work. But his friend had to break his ink well, and leave cursed items in his home...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magic Ink

“Sal all'c hunne...” Ralph had the unbreakable habit to hum the magical words under his breath as he wrote his spells on his tome.

It was not a healthy habit – in fact, more than once he had accidentally cast destructive spells inside his own home due to it. There were scorch marks on the floor and walls, and even moss growing on some of his furniture caused by unintended showers of water spells. But, he couldn't help it.

“...Jami--.” the word was cut off as the ink on his pen suddenly stopped flowing.

He took a look at the ink compartment, then cursed the pen. He had enchanted it himself never to write when there wasn't enough ink for the lines to came out flawless, but at the moment, he couldn't get more ink, and there was only one last sentence to that spell. The small amount of ink was more than good enough.

He glanced out of the window and sighed heavily. The snow storm that had began a few hours ago was still raging, unperturbed by the passing of time. He knew for a fact he didn't have more magic ink, because Linus had broken his ink well late the previous day, and he hadn't found the opportunity to replace it. “Damn him.” he muttered.

There wasn't any rush for him to finish writing the spell. He had created it, but he had several notes on it, and he was good at remembering the words. Still he needed to write it right now, just because. He didn't want to do anything else.

Cursing himself, and his self entitled best friend, he went to the basement of his small shack to rummage through the boxes he had been storing for Linus; just while he didn't have enough money to move away from the house he shared with his brother. Maybe Linus had some magic ink there – his brother was one of the Knights, after all. He had to keep up pretense that he wasn't a warlock, dabbling in battle magic was punishable by death if you weren't one of the Queen's witches nowadays. Even worse was the method of death, as they made you guinea pig for the battle magic their researchers were creating, or so they said.

He pushed away the horrendous thoughts of getting caught and went through his friend's objects. The box was a mess – only looking at it made shudders wrack down his body – and some of the objects he found it made him question his own wisdom to accept to house the magical paraphernalia of an idiot who couldn't distinguish a curse from a jinx. Still, he felt a victorious grin turn up his lips when he found a ink well, and as he uncapped it, he could feel the clear scent and shine that said it was indeed magical ink. Of the finest quality, even.

He felt no ounce of guilt as he went back to his small office with the small glass bottle and carefully refilled his pen. He sighed in contentment as it once again began to work, and he resumed writing the words of his spell.

At least until the ink on the page suddenly rearranged itself, making his skin crawl. “Those are such funny words. Has so much time passed that you would forget my language?” the ink worded against the page of his tome, using words and sentence structure he would have expected of a stuck up old mage scrapping his hundred years.

Cursed ink. He should have expected it – why did he even have the brilliant idea to mess with Linus' stuff again? “Are you a demon? What do you want from me?” he scrawled quickly. Trying to pretend nothing had happened and throw the ink away wouldn't do him any good. If he was going to be cursed, he needed to find a way to reverse it, and he needed to know which kind of magical being he was dealing with in order for him to work efficiently.

“Demon! Oh, no, not as such! I am but a poor fairy, cursed for trying to retrieve my stolen wings. Will you not help me, young mage? You are a mage, are you not? You look much like the man who cursed me, though he could have been ten times as old as you are.” the script was tiny, trying to use the ink that was already in the paper. The ink on the well wasn't being moved at all – it was a good sign for his health. The being on the ink – if it was truly a fairy – seemed to have very limited powers.

“Tell me your name and I will help you.” he wrote down his demand. For several seconds he was unanswered. That relieved him a bit – fairies and dryads wouldn't promptly tell a person their name, as that was all you needed to entrap one of them as your slave for as long as you lived. Demons didn't have such a problem – but there was still the possibility he was dealing with an intelligent demon who knew how to impersonate a fairy.

“Well, I suppose that is a fair trade off. My name for my freedom of this cursed dark void. What are two centuries as a human's slave? My name is Adelle, and I will do anything you ask of me once you grant me my freedom, little mage.” Ralph hummed as he read the words. Adelle, was it?

“How do I free you?” he wrote down on a whim. If she didn't know, he could find out. This was his job, after all, he was a curse breaker by profession. But if she did know the answer, everything would be so much easier.

“You need to draw me a body of flesh with this ink.” Ralph was surprised by the answer. Then, he was impressed by the curse. He had read curses like these before, but the theory behind them was extremely complex. Whoever had cast it, it was a genius mage who had created such a curse.

“Very well.” he agreed.

It was her luck that he was good at drawing. He ripped the page off his tome that had been soiled by the cursed ink, then used the blank back to draw a beautiful woman with wings.

He had seen fairies before once or twice, but they were rare beings. Their wings were often stolen so they could be ground out into magic dust. This fairy was fairly young and naive if she had chased a mage to retrieve her wings, however – they did grow back after several years. Waiting was far less dangerous for them.

He drew for hours and hours. If nothing else, at least it distracted him from the fact he no longer had any paint to write his spells. He was careful and elaborated the details to pass the time, giving her the beautiful clothes story books usually gave fairies – even though they weren't factually accurate depictions.

Once he was done, he slashed the tip of his finger on the tiny blade hidden in his pen and smeared the drawing with his blood, singing in a low voice the enchantment that would give the drawing life. He threw the piece of paper on his carpet them – just in time, too, as a full grown woman suddenly came into being over the mess of paint, looking like a being right out of the books.

She gasped and shivered, looking down at her clothes. Considering it was winter, maybe he should have clothed her into clothes that did a better job of hiding her skin from the cold air, but he didn't really could bring himself to care. “You're free.” he told her, simply.

She chewed on her lower lip, seeming scared about something. Then, her eyes became half lidded, and she smiled up at him as she purred. “What can I do to repay you, master?”

“My name is Ralph.” he corrected her. He didn't want slaves – they were more trouble than they were worth, specially when you dealt with delicate magical artifacts. But she had made a promise, and once you knew a fairy's name, their promises were unbreakable. So, she needed to grant him a favor.

He knew exactly what he wanted from her.

He stood from his chair and quickly opened his locked bureau, carefully going through the drawer until he found what he wanted. One of his magical healing stones. The fairy was watching him with wide, vulnerable eyes when he returned and stood in front of her.

“I want you to sing.” he told her simply, and placed the stone inside her hands. “Recharge completely my healing stone, then you'll be freed of your promise to me.” She blinked, then smiled brightly up at him.

Ralph wasn't one to believe in everything people talked about fairies. But that night, he found out all the rumors were right when they spoke of their beautiful singing voices. He completely forgot about work, or about his annoyances, and relaxed as the beautiful sound filled his house, until at last it lulled him to sleep.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a short story written during NaNoWriMo 2015, while I wanted a break from my main work.


End file.
